You Can Call Me Boss — or — Badminton Chinese New Year

So, my coach went home for Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) for a week. His one employee, Lao Shushu, is also his relative and also went home. Spring festival is the biggest holiday of the year in China with virtually everything, except tourist things, shuttered. This of course includes all the badminton courts. If you wanna play, you just gotta wait a few days.

Unless, of course, your badminton Becky.

That’s right! My coach gave me the keys to the kingdom and I am the new queen. For the next few days if you want to play badminton, you gotta call me, Boss Becky, to let you in. I’m not gonna go and sit there all day hoping someone will come, but if someone wants to play (and they say something on the online group chat I am in) and asks nicely, and I like them, then I’ll open the doors for them, heh heh.

Right before he left to go back to his hometown, I helped my coach hang the “duilian” or rhyming couplets on the door. It is a Spring Festival tradition and thought to bring luck to any household with them. My coach is a modern guy, but also deeply superstitious so this must be done.

But just for a few days because I’m gonna go to my coaches hometown for a few days of the holiday as well. He lives in Guangdong province, about an hour and a half train ride from Xiamen, in a small city. He said he wants me to meet not only his family, but his childhood badminton friends. He wants me to play badminton in his hometown at his friends courts.

I didn’t want to spend a week at my coaches old hometown, two nights is enough, so I’ll be going towards the tail end of the holiday, play, hang out, eat strange food, and then get a ride back to Xiamen with my coach.

This year is year of the rooster (or chicken) and a fitting year it is for badminton. (Birdies…year of the bird….get it?) And I’m starting the year off as the badminton boss. Quite an auspicious beginning! I wish everyone a happy new year! Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Yay for Spring Festival!